


For A New Day

by Hexiva



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reboot, Canon LGBTQ Female Character, Canon Queer Character, Canon Queer Relationship, Ethical Dilemmas, Gen, Genocide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8253020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexiva/pseuds/Hexiva
Summary: Faced with the possibility of wiping the human race off of the face of the Earth, Magneto is torn. Can he go through with this unimaginable act? He looks for an answer from his lieutenant, Mystique.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a scrap from an alternate universe of my own creation - kind of a merger of the movie and comic universes. For this fic, all you need to know is that Magneto is leading the Brotherhood and Mystique is his second-in-command.

  
_"The Earth - that beautiful, filthy gem we spin so ignorantly upon - is sick. Dying of a cancer. A stupid, smiling cancer that feeds upon both the host that sustains it and its own squalid mass, with remarkable appetite and efficacy. The disease is called - humanity. Left unfettered, the cancer will surely consume everything, leaving the earth a haunted corpse. And yet . . . with scalpel in hand, as a surgeon poised above his sleeping charge . . . I hesitate." - **Magneto, X-Men #85**  
_

Magneto stood in the Brotherhood headquarters, his back to the door as he stared out the window pensively. He didn’t turn when Mystique opened the door and walked in, but she suspected that he knew, somehow, who it was. 

“You’re hesitating,” she said, flatly. “You’re not sure if you can go through with it.”

Magneto was silent. His shoulders were tense, and the face she could see reflected back in the window looked all of its ninety years. Just as Mystique started to think he was ignoring her entirely, he bowed his head and said, “There is someone you go home to, is there not, Mystique? A family? Children, perhaps?”

Mystique frowned. She wasn’t naive enough to think that Magneto had let her work as his lieutenant all these years without checking her out. He knew she had a family. “A wife and a daughter,” she volunteered, guardedly.

Magneto let out a soft exhalation, almost a laugh. Mystique wondered briefly if he was mocking her. “I had the same, once. A long time ago.” He looked up, staring off into space. “Your wife, is she a mutant?”

“Yes. And my daughter, too.”

“Do you love her?”

Mystique’s scaled brow raised. “I wouldn’t have married her if I didn’t.”

Magneto seemed to ignore her sardonic tone. He turned around and met Mystique’s gaze. “Would you still love her if she was a human?”

“She’s not,” Mystique stated. When Magneto’s look indicated that this answer was not sufficient, she added, “She wouldn’t be the same person if she was. She . . . sees things the way I do. Even if she gets on my nerves sometimes, we’re on the same side.”

“She was human,” Magneto said abruptly, his face blank. “Magda. So, I suppose, was our daughter. At the time, I believed I myself was human.”

“What happened to them?” Mystique asked, her tone uncharacteristically gentle. She had some idea of the horrors that Magneto had suffered. 

Magneto turned back to the window. Mystique saw his eyes squinch up in pain. He was trying not to cry, she realized. Although his face was lined and wrinkled, she still caught herself thinking of him as a young man sometimes. She was much, much older than she looked, and to her, he was young. 

“When my powers were discovered, they . . . my wife fled from me. And my daughter . . . died, at the hands of bigots who feared my abilities.”

“That never has to happen to another mutant again,” Mystique said, looking Magneto straight in the eyes. “We have the power to do that, right here and right now. To make a better world for my daughter to grow up in.”

“But at what cost?” 

“At any cost.”

“Would your daughter agree, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Mystique said, immediately. “And I don’t care. I’m not doing this to be liked. I’m doing this so that she can have a better childhood than I did. If she hates me for that, so be it, as long as she’s alive to hate me.”

Magneto looked off into the distance. “What kind of man am I if I go through with it? If I slaughter millions of innocent humans?” He paused, and then added, “What kind of man am I if I refuse to do what is necessary to protect our people?”

Mystique shook her head. “I don’t think it matters what kind of man you are. It’s about what kind of world we can make. You know better than I do that they wouldn’t hesitate if it were us. We knew when we started this that we were going to get blood on our hands.”

Magneto laughed, an unhappy, quiet sound. “We both had blood on our hands long before we started this.”

“Better us than them, right?” Mystique said, and then added, more quietly, “Better their kids than ours.”

Magneto caught his breath, pained.

Mystique took a step closer. “If you can’t do it, Erik . . . I can. You don’t have to bear all your burdens alone.”

Magneto stiffened and shook his head. “No. I will not shirk the responsibility for what I have set in motion. If this thing is to be done, it will be my finger on the button.”

“Then I can’t make your choice for you. But you know what I think. What you do with that . . . I guess is up to you.”

“Of course.” Magneto bowed his head. “Go about your business, Mystique. I need time to . . . think.”

“Don’t wait too long, Erik,” Mystique said, turning towards the door.

“And, Mystique?” Magneto said, just as she was about to exit. “Thank you.”


End file.
